Four Astronauts Return To Earth After Eight Months In Space

LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES – Four astronauts returned to earth from the international space station on Thursday after hurrying there eight months ago to replace an ailing colleague and his crew.

SpaceX brought the U.S., French and Russian flyers back with a splashdown in the pacific off the coast of Los Angeles.

All four were out of their capsule within an hour, waving and pumping their fists in the air aboard SpaceX’s recovery ship.

After a helicopter ride to shore, they were going to head for Houston.

The crew left the planet in February to replace four station occupants who were sent home early after one of them fell ill.

It was NASA’s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight.